In the news...

Business networking site LinkedIn announced yesterday that it has added Skip Battle, the 66-year-old former CEO of Ask.com, to its board of directors. Battle - who is a current board member of several publicly listed Internet companies including Netflix Inc, Expedia Inc and OpenTable Inc - is the first independent director to join LinkedIn.

Microblogging site Twitter has unveiled a new-look homepage that's designed to be more inviting and user-friendly for new users and visitors unfamiliar with the site. Users who are not logged in will see the new homepage, which features more dynamic content including 'top tweets' that automatically appear every few seconds, a 'see who's here' panel highlighting famous people and brands that use Twitter and trending topics that scroll across the page.

Earlier last week, Facebook began rolling out improvements to its search experience. The social networking site seems increasingly focused on opening up data and this latest move may worry the guys at Mountain View a little further.

The on-line media blogs have been buzzing this week with news that the social networking giant Facebook is trialling the use of QR (Quick Response) codes . Although they resemble barcodes, QR codes can carry significantly more data - such as links, videos, text, photos and other content - and they don't require a scanner to read them, as most modern mobile 'phones can do this using their cameras (hence the 'quick').

In a post on its developer blog on Thursday, social networking site Facebook announced that since its update to its terms of service in the summer, it has disabled two ad networks that were running deceptive ads.

On Monday, Google announced its new Social Search feature, which the company has rolled out as an experiment on Google Labs. Part of the search giant's 'Holy Grail' mission to make search more relevant, Google Social Search includes results from the user's 'social circle' in a special section within the results pages.

Doubts expressed earlier this week that Global Gaming Factory's acquisition of The Pirate Bay (TPB) might not be completed have been dismissed by the company. Hans Pandeya, CEO of the software, Internet café and gaming centre group, told CNET News, " Nobody is uncertain about anything.

Real-time social messaging service Twitter has been fessing up over the slack security that allowed a hacker to access the personal web services accounts of co-founder Evan Williams, his wife and at least one other employee, making off with a pile of confidential Twitter documents which are now being published on the Internet.

Controversial file-sharing website The Pirate Bay (TPB) will be purchased by fellow Swedish company Global Gaming Factory (GGF). Under the deal, GGF – which provides digital distribution tools for Internet cafés – will pay a massive $7.76 million for TPB.

The four Swedish founders of The Pirate Bay have been sentenced to a year in jail and ordered to pay some £2.5 million in damages for helping Internet users to download music, films and computer games.

Notorious file-sharing website The Pirate Bay is facing a new storm of controversy, as allegations are made that it could be tempting Facebook users into illegal download activity. The Pirate Bay – a Swedish site that maintains a huge index of movie, music and game downloads – has linked itself to Facebook, the 175 million-strong social network.